Conventional slicers of this type generally comprise a substantially cylindrical housing whose open bottom accommodates the object to be comminuted, such comminution being accomplished with one or more cutter blades vertically reciprocable within the housing. The cutter blades are usually mounted on a vertical stem or spindle terminating at its top in a manual actuator such as a handgrip or a knob which can be depressed against the force of a restoring spring.
For more effective slicing it is desirable to impart to the cutter blade or blades not only a vertical reciprocation but also a rotary motion. Various means for driving the cutter with a stepwise rotary movement have already been proposed for this purpose. Some of these stepping mechanisms, located in the actuator, are quite complex and correspondingly expensive. In certain cases the actuator must be quickly released at the end of a downstroke lest the vertical reciprocation be translated into an oscillating rather than a progressive rotary motion.